


Earthquakes Are To A Girl's Guitar

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-22
Updated: 2010-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:30:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curiosity might be just what she needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earthquakes Are To A Girl's Guitar

She sees her first guitar when she’s ten years old, in the window of  _Mike’s Music Mania_  on Cross Street downtown and she falls in love.

The strings and the lines of the wood and the way it seemed like it sparkled under the lights of the window sucked her in and kept her mesmerized while her mother ranted about the merits of organ over guitar – she could play in the church band if she learns to play organ, her mother argues, and Quinn is old enough at this point that she knows not to try and fight her mother on it; she knows if she wants something, she needs to get it herself.

So she goes to her organ lessons and practices diligently. She learns organ quickly and when her instructor starts to notice that she spends most of her time staring longingly at the Yahama on the wall, he laughs and shakes his head and hands her a child’s version of the same CPX 500 and teaches her the basic chords.

The guitar comes even quicker than the organ does. She doesn’t have to press on pedals – later, when her instructor plugs her into her first amp, she finds it a little too tricky and declares she likes acoustic better anyway – and she doesn’t have to sit up straight when she plays. Her little body folds over the even smaller guitar and when she starts she can only play “Smoke on the Water” but nothing has else will ever sound as good as the first time she played it all the way through.

\---

It’s one of the reasons she stops resisting the temptation of Noah Puckerman.

He can play guitar and he plays it  _good_.

His fingers make magic with his six-string and his voice is gravely when it bounces against the hardwood of the body and Quinn has always been a sucker for anyone who can play “Hotel California” and make it look easy.

The end result isn’t necessarily worth the giving in, but she has fun while he simultaneously playes her “Stairway To Heaven” and manages to get her out of her clothes.

That has to count for something.

\---

She stares at the stick in her hand, not sure if she’s really seeing it, but there are two pink lines staring back up at her, telling her that  _no_ , she’s  _not_  seeing things.

She’s pregnant.

With child.

 _Expecting_.

Any way she says it in her head sounds worse than the way before it.

Every time she looks back down, the pink lines mocking her start to scream louder in her head, like the wailing of an electric guitar bouncing off the walls of an empty auditorium.

\---

Mike asks her if she can take over and teach a few individual lessons her sophomore year of high school, and his timing is perfect.

She’s been feeling sick to her stomach since sleeping with Puck – and it’s too early for morning sickness, she knows, but at least now, she knows  _why_ she’s been feeling off – and giving private lessons will take her mind off things, like the fact that eventually, people are going to find out, or Finn staring at Rachel Berry all the time.

Her ‘students’ vary in age and experience: there’s Mr. Parks, a 40-year-old father of three who always wanted to be a rock and roll star, but started a family instead; Bobby Donnelly who doesn’t care about cords – he just wants to be able to play anything that will get him ‘the ladies’, something Quinn finds amusing, considering he’s twelve; and Mrs. Bauer, a housewife with a sudden increase of time on her hands.

Mike calls her an angel and as a ‘thank you’ gift, he gives her a key to the sound room attached to the building.

“ _Play anytime you want_ ,” he tells her, with a knowing smile.

\---

It’s fun, relearning the basics and getting to play on an everyday basis, even if she needs to make up excuses about why she’s coming home later and later each night – poor Mrs. Bauer just can’t get past strumming at the same time as playing the chords and Quinn really likes the woman, so she keeps trying to make it work.

If only because she wants to hold onto these moments of calm before the chaos hits.

\---

Then she doesn’t have to stop making excuses, because Sue strips her of her uniform and her social calendar empties in the time it takes someone to throw a Slushie at her.

She stumbles into  _Mike’s_  in a daze, her hands reaching for the first bass she sees.

“Quinn?”

Mike’s voice echoes in the back of her mind, but she’s already moving through the store, letting herself into the sound room and locking the door behind her.

Her fingers don’t really have a plan as they move up and down the neck – she’s mostly just playing chords over and over and over again, trying to clear her mind and not think about her life plummeting to the bottom of a big dark well, crashing and burning in one giant burst of fire and sex and positive pregnancy tests.

When she finally makes her way out of the sound room, the sun has set and there’s a single light on in the store, hovering over the couch in the corner by the drum sets.

Mike left her a blanket, a pillow and a sandwich and Quinn burrows into a corner of the couch, refusing to allow herself to cry.

She’s pregnant and no longer a cheerleader and probably going to end up homeless, but Quinn Fabray is not weak.

Except when she is.

\---

Rachel Berry shows up at  _Mike’s_  two weeks after she successfully cuts Quinn off at the knees.

Quinn is walking out of the lesson’s room, cuffing Bobby Donnelly on the shoulder while he goes on about some blond in his art class who’s “ _totally got the hots for me_ ” and she’s not even looking up, but she can  _hear_  Rachel’s voice carry across the front room.

“I’m applying to Julliard next year and it’s important to be a well rounded artist,” Quinn can hear her telling Mike.

She’s so caught off guard she can’t just turn around and when Mike sees her, his eyes light up and even though she’s drawing an invisible line across her neck, he claps a hand down on Rachel’s shoulder and smiles down at her, spinning her in place. “We have just the instructor for you,” he says.

Quinn feels sick.

“Rachel, I’d like you to meet-”

“Berry,” Quinn says dully, cutting Mike off.

Rachel looks sick.

“Quinn,” she says softly.

Mike smirks. “So you two know each other.”

Quinn smiles politely, because Mrs. Bauer is here and she’s squealing about getting a quick G, C chord change down and as they turn and head for the lesson room, she can hear Mike talking about how Quinn’s one of the best; she always has been.

She doesn’t hear Rachel’s response, but it’s probably something about Rachel not knowing since she hasn’t heard Quinn play yet.

\---

It’s not even that it’s Rachel Berry; it’s not that she dreams about the urge to rise in her seat and bring the body of the guitar down over Rachel’s head.

It’s not that she has to give her lessons; the money is good and Mike is promising to give her more than her fair share of the cut.

It’s that someone knows her secret.

And when someone knows, it’s not a secret anymore.

\---

“Let’s start easy,” she says bluntly, around the doorway into the lesson room.

Rachel is sitting on the edge of the couch with her hands on her knees, staring up at Quinn with wide eyes and her mouth set in a grim line.

Quinn rolls her eyes. “I’m not going to hit you.”

It’s almost amusing that Rachel visibly deflates.

“Maybe I should find someone else to instruct me.”

“I’m perfectly capable of doing it,” Quinn says through clenched teeth. “You heard Mike. I’m one of the best.”

That seems to cause Rachel’s jaw to snap shut and Quinn lets out a soft, small sigh of relief that she can finally start this thing.

The faster they start, the sooner it’s over.

She hands Rachel the guitar that Bobby uses when he forgets his own at home. It’s a little smaller than the standard size, and it’s really not an insult, it’s just that Rachel can probably handle it better, especially since she’s never played one before.

Rachel, though, thinks the complete opposite of what Quinn means.

“I’m insulted.”

Quinn rolls her eyes again. “It’s not what you think-”

“You think I can’t play a  _real_  guitar,” Rachel says over her.

“It’s not that. I just-”

“You think that I am not capable of-”

Quinn slams her palm flat against the coffee table between them. Rachel’s mouth clamps shut. “Listen,” she commands.

If Rachel were a dog, Quinn is sure her ears would go up, standing at attention. As it is, she sits a little straighter, but eyes the guitar warily.

Quinn grits her teeth. “Contrary to what I’ve been saying to you for the last few pathetic years of your life,” she says haltingly, “you don’t have manhands. Your hands are,” she pauses and tilts her head to the side, “small, actually.”

Rachel frowns and Quinn realizes that her voice has gone soft. She shifts on the couch and tries to glare again, but Rachel is looking down at the Yahama again. “Using that guitar will be easier, for right now. When you get better at it, then we’ll graduate you up to a big girl guitar? Sound fun?”

Her condescending tone is weak, but Rachel merely scowls and picks up the guitar and places it gingerly on her lap.

Rachel’s head snaps back up only after a few minutes of silence. “Well, are we going to do something or what?”

\---

Glee has the potential to be awkward, but, to Quinn’s surprise, it’s like every other day.

Puck keeps trying to get her attention; Finn keeps glaring at her.

Rachel keeps rambling on about the merits of having a  _Wicked_  song in her repertoire while Kurt keeps rolling his eyes.

Santana keeps making bitchy remarks and Brittany keeps apologizing for her.

She’s not sure what it means, that Rachel hasn’t run off and told everyone that Quinn now spends her afternoons playing guitar – not that it’s not so bad, really, it’s just something she has all herself and she doesn’t want to share.

Instead of thinking too much about it, she thinks about how she’s going to pay Mike for letting her stay at the shop, even if he doesn’t want the money.

She’s a teenager.

Life isn’t supposed to be this hard.

\---

“Where did you even get the idea to learn to play?” Quinn asks one day over Rachel’s sad attempt at “Chasing Cars”.

Rachel pauses in the song and looks up. “Noah, actually.”

Quinn feels her face flush and then pale, like someone throwing cold water on a steaming furnace. “ _Puck_?”

“He played for me.”

She has flashes of “Stairway To Heaven” and Puck’s leering grin and staring up at his ceiling and rough hands moving across her ticklish stomach and the cotton feeling in her mouth the morning after.

“He didn’t, you didn’t,” she sputters, dropping her voice low, “ _Did you sleep with him_?”

Rachel’s eyes go wide. “No!”

Something like relief floods through Quinn, washing over her peacefully. She exhales slowly and nods, the blood returning to her face. “Good,” she whispers.

She thinks she hears Rachel murmur “ _I’m not you_ ” but she can’t really make it out over the roaring in her ears.

Instead, she leans forward and plucks Rachel’s hand off the neck, pulls it a little further down and places it back over the strings, arranging her fingers just so.

“Try strumming it as you breathe, you know what I mean?”

Rachel nods slowly and Quinn’s mouth quirks up a little before she frowns slightly.

“Here,” she motions, “like this.”

\---

Rachel brings her a plate of cookies during their last lesson before the shop shuts down for Christmas.

Quinn eats them cheerily – because even if they’re shaped like stars, they’re tasty – and hums “Don’t Stop Believing” in between bites.

She’s chewing and singing and so when Rachel says something to her, she only sees Rachel’s mouth open, but doesn’t actually hear the words. She swallows heavily and asks Rachel to repeat herself.

“I said,” Rachel starts, clearing her throat, “I know you’ve been staying here. With Mike.”

Quinn dry swallows.

“And while I’m sure it’s nice that you have somewhere warm,” Rachel continues, “You certainly cannot stay here over Christmas.”

She can, actually. She planned on it: Mike was going to Cincinnati for the holiday, to be with his family, and he invited Quinn, but she opted to stay and watch the shop.

“Yes, I can,” she says calmly, surprising both of them.

Rachel shakes her head. “It’s not right for you to be alone on Christmas.”

Quinn scoffs and starts plucking at the strings on her guitar. “Stop talking about Christmas like you celebrate it.”

“Only one of my fathers is Jewish,” Rachel says matter-of-factly. “We don’t celebrate Christmas, per say, but we know how to.” She looks away, her hands laced together on her knees and Quinn knows that look; has seen that look too often since she’s joined Glee: Rachel feels guilty about something she did that may or may not have been with the best of intentions.

“What did you do, Berry?” she growls.

Rachel looks up frantically and shakes her head. “I, I didn’t do anything,” she stutters.

Quinn waits, eyes narrowed and mouth turned down and Rachel only holds out for a moment before her face breaks.

“I told my parents you had nowhere to go for Christmas,” she says in a rush, exhaling loudly.

“You told them  _what_?”

“I told them you had nowhere to go,” Rachel says, a little slower and steadier.

Quinn turns red. “I’m not going to your house for Christmas.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

The way Rachel says it makes Quinn’s stomach turn over a few times. “What the hell does that mean?”

Rachel straightens up, glancing at the clock and making that noise in the back of her throat she makes whenever the lesson has ended. “They’re waiting outside.”

Quinn narrows her eyes, puts the guitar down, crosses her hands over her chest and pushes her shoulder blades back into the couch. “The only way,” she says in a low voice, “you’re getting me there is if you kidnap me.”

Rachel lifts an eyebrow.

\---

Rachel’s dad clears his throat from the couch; Quinn doesn’t look up.

“We apologize for Rachel’s,” he pauses, probably searching for the right word, “enthusiasm,” he finishes lightly.

Rachel scoffs. “I rescind that apology.”

“Well I don’t accept your apology anyway,” Quinn says fiercely, looking up finally.

“You can’t sleep in the back of an instrument shop on Christmas.”

“ _You_  can’t force someone to spend Christmas with you!” Quinn yells back, lifting off the armchair. “I knew you wanted friends, Berry, but I didn’t think you were that desperate.”

Rachel’s dad on the couch coughs a little and looks at Rachel’s dad by the doorway. “We’ll leave you two alone to talk for a bit.”

Quinn thinks she hears one of the say “ _do you think that’s a good idea_ ” but Rachel is already standing in front of her.

“I didn’t force you.”

Quinn’s eyes flash. “You threatened to break my guitar!”

Then Quinn blinks and proud, sure Rachel’s shoulders sag and she becomes that Rachel from the hallway with her eyes closed, waiting for Quinn to stand up and knock her down. She was too tired to do it the first time, but with Rachel just standing there, she feels the sudden urge to make up for what she didn’t do, but she doesn’t, because she’s not that kind of person.

Instead, she clenches her fists and sinks back into the chair.

“I’m trying,” Rachel says weakly.

Quinn swallows heavily. “Trying  _what_ , exactly?”

“To fix things. To make it better.”

The fight welling up inside of Quinn dissipates just as quickly. “Rachel,” she says softly.

Rachel takes a step back. “I know when I’m wrong and I know when I’m right. What I did, telling Finn about the baby being Puck’s – that was wrong. So I want to make it up to you.”

“Rachel-”

“No, listen to me.”

Quinn’s mouth snaps shut.

“I know you told me that I did what you couldn’t do, but I also did what you didn’t want to do. You could have told them both, separately, or together and it could have been easier, but I took that choice away from you.” Rachel steps back in, her legs touching Quinn’s knees and takes a deep breath in. “No one should be alone during this time of year, Quinn, no matter what they celebrate.”

“So this is you apologizing.” It’s not a question, but Rachel nods anyway, her eyes wide and hopeful. Quinn sighs and pushes off the armchair, landing inches from Rachel and when she breathes out, she cn  _see_  it brush across Rachel’s cheek.

“It’s a start,” she says quietly. “Now, where’s this guest room?”

\---

She knows it’s not fair to let Rachel feel this bad about everything. After all, she’s the one who made the mistake of sleeping with Puck.

Although, if Finn just learned to play guitar…

 _Still_ , she thinks as she lays in the Berry’s guestroom, staring up at the ceiling,  _it’s nice that someone – even if it is Rachel – cares._

\---

Someone is bouncing up and down at the end of the bed, landing on her feet every odd bounce and when she’s lucid enough, she kicks out.

Rachel only laughs at her and continues to bounce.

“Come on already, Quinn. It’s  _Christmas_.”

She thinks about saying something snappy like “ _and what, you’ve never celebrated Christmas before?_ ” but that’s just stupid, because Rachel would only tilt her head to the side and say “ _yes, actually_ ” and she’d never leave – which is what Quinn wants.

So she mumbles “ _get out_ ” except that she’s sure Rachel doesn’t hear her.

“There are presents,” she says in a high voice.

Quinn sits up, hoping her hair isn’t as bad as she knows it looks. “What?”

Rachel nods excitedly. “Presents,” she repeats. Then her eyes go wide and she leans in. “Also, Santana is downstairs and she only gave me five minutes to get you out of bed. We’re almost past our limit.”

“Santana is here?”

“Brittany is too.”

Quinn smiles widely and pushes back the covers, feeling like a little kid again and makes it to the door before she realizes Rachel isn’t behind her. She turns around, pulling her hair up into a loose ponytail. “Well, are you coming or what?”

Rachel’s eyes twinkle a little. “If I knew saying  _Brittany_  would get you out of bed, I would have said that sooner.”

“Yeah,” Quinn muses, hoping down the stairs to the landing. “Well, you’ll learn all the little things.”

\---

Brittany hugs her; Santana smiles – and even if it looks more like a scowl, Quinn is too excited to really care.

The Glee kids have pitched in and gotten her a small collection of baby garments – because, apparently, she’s keeping the baby and she just doesn’t know it yet – and even Mr. Schuester pitched in and got a small “Number One Baby” bib.

Santana, grimacing, hands her a basket of cleaning products. “From Miss. Pillsbury,” she explain unnecessarily. Brittany elbows Santana hard in the ribs. On Quinn’s left, she hears Rachel stifle a giggle.

“And this,” Santana says haltingly, “is from Brittany.” Another sharp jab and Santana smiles through grit teeth, saying, “And me. It’s from us.”

Quinn takes it hesitantly, but it’s from Brittany, so there’s not a lot of damage it can do. She rips off the wrapping and flips through the small booklet, smiling widely.

“You guys,” she says softly. “This is great.”

Rachel reaches across her and takes it. “An IOU book?”

Brittany nods, smiling widely. “I printed it off the computer and colored it in and wrote it all out myself,” she says proudly.

Quinn and Rachel look at Santana, but the brunette shrugs. “I wrapped it.”

“It’s so you can do, like, normal stuff and we can watch the baby when you want to go out,” Brittany continues. Her voice drops low and serious. “I won’t let Santana eat her. I promise.”

Then Rachel’s dads are calling them in for breakfast and Rachel is asking Brittany and Santana if they want to stay.

The day is gone before Quinn can really get a hold of it, the way that good dreams fade right as you wake up.

\---

She leans up against the door to Rachel’s room, a small smile ghosting across her mouth. Rachel is sitting in the middle of her bed, eyes closed, waving her hands around like a conductor’s baton.

After a few minutes, she steps into the room but reaches back around the door for the present she was permitted to give to Rachel. It was really from Rachel’s dads, something they emailed her about weeks ago, when Rachel first started lessons and proved she was going to stick with it, but after Rachel went upstairs, they pulled her aside and asked her if she could do the honors.

“ _We don’t do Christmas here and I know we could have given it to her for Hanukkah, but she’s been talking about having you over so we figured we’d wait,_ ” they said, thrusting the guitar shaped package into her hands. “ _Thanks for everything you’ve done for her_.”

She wonders what that means; if they know how she’s been making Rachel miserable for the last couple of years; if they’re saying that to make her feel guilty or not.

“Oh,” Rachel says, opening one eye and catching sight of Quinn.

“No, no,” Quinn insists. “Keep going. Pretend like I’m not even here.”

Rachel bites her bottom lip and looks past Quinn at the present against the door. “You forget one?”

Quinn smiles. “Actually, this is your first ever Christmas present.”

“No it’s not,” Rachel says, reaching for the package anyway.

Quinn lifts it gently and places it reverently on the bed, feeling its weight in her hands even after she lets it go. “Yes, it is.”

Rachel waits approximately thirty seconds before she starts ripping away the wrapping paper, pulling the front off in one single tear. Quinn sigh longingly as Rachel pulls away the rest of the paper.

It’s a beautiful guitar – probably cherry – and its weighted and smooth and when Rachel wraps her hands around it and brings the tips of her fingers down across the strings, the low, hollow sound echoes off the walls and through Quinn’s body, coming out of the tips of her toes and fingers.

“Wow,” Rachel breathes out. She tilts her head back up at Quinn.

Quinn can’t think of anything to say, so she smiles instead.

“This is-”

“ _A big girl guitar_ ,” Quinn points out, finally finding the words. She snorts and it turns into a giggle and when she finally takes a deep breath, she’s on the floor with her back against the bed and Rachel’s flat on her back, her head draping over the edge, her hair swinging down beneath her.

There’s a fluttering in her stomach and she blames it on the hormones and the way that Rachel’s face looks so calm and happy and so close.

Rachel’s gaze darts down to what Quinn assumes is her mouth and then she’s leaning in and Quinn can feel her body straining up and over, like it wants to move, but she won’t let it.

It would be cliché, to kiss Rachel right now, and she’s made too many mistakes and she’s hurt too many people and this wouldn’t be about them, in this moment.

It would be about her need to have someone; about taking Rachel’s kindness and turning it around on her, because that’s what Quinn Fabray does – she exploits to the best of her ability, and she’s damn good at it.

So instead, she lifts up and reaches over Rachel, grasping at the guitar and pulling it into her lap, ignoring the flash of disappointment in Rachel’s eyes.

“Here,” she says in an almost-whisper. “I’ll play you something.”

She plays “Cavatina” by Stanley Myers until her fingers hurt.

\---

The shop opens back up a week into the New Year and Quinn slips back into the slightly bohemian lifestyle she’s been living with Mike – waking up every morning to the soothing piano in the corner, drinking orange juice out of Styrofoam cups, playing chords until the very minute she needs to go to school.

Mrs. Bauer – Judy, she finally tells Quinn – comes back and thanks her for all her help and her patience, but hands Quinn back the guitar she had letter the older woman borrow.

“ _I’m pregnant again_ ,” she had told Quinn and tried to hide the regret in her voice with her smile.

Quinn had thought about telling Mrs. Bauer that you can do both. You can be a mom-to-be and still go after your dreams, but the older woman had seemed so resigned, so accepting of her fate, that Quinn just nodded mutely and took the guitar and a hug and a loaf of banana bread.

Bobby breaks his hand over the holiday break and tells her that the girl he liked doesn’t like musicians, so it doesn’t matter if he can play or not, but “ _for what it’s worth, you’re totally the girl I dream about_.”

It’s slightly gross, but she smiles and pats him on the shoulder.

Mr. Parks’ comes in and tells her that he had to do some refinancing and that things needed to get shuffled around and cut out and guitar lessons had to go. “ _You’re great though, Quinn_ ,” he assures her with a somber smile.

So all she’s left with is Rachel.

\---

“Did you hear that?” Rachel’s voice is a high-pitched squeal, so Quinn grimaces and nods.

“It sounded great.

Rachel squeals again. “It was better than  _great_. That was almost perfection.”

Quinn genuinely laughs. “Close, Rachel. It was close.”

“I can take close to perfect.”

Quinn’s mouth must actually drop open because Rachel is blushing and looking away, then looking back with steeled eyes. “I can, you know. I don’t need _everything_  to be perfect.”

“It would be nice if everything was though, huh?” Quinn says softly, longingly.

Rachel nods. “Sure. But then everything would mean nothing.”

\---

Rachel’s brow is pulled together tightly, concentrating on The Rolling Stone’s “Play With Fire” when Quinn finds that her body has slid across the couch and her thigh is flush against Rachel’s.

The brunette looks up with a small smile and Quinn can’t smile back. She can only focus on the lines of Rachel’s face and the skin that leads down to the corner of Rachel’s mouth and when she blinks, she’s leaning in and one hand is touching Rachel’s jaw as her lips cling to Rachel’s ever-so slightly.

She kisses Rachel for a few different reasons: to say she’s sorry, to say thank you, to see what all the fuss is about.

Rachel is completely still under her touch, so Quinn pulls back a few inches and tries not breathe in Rachel’s face, because she ate tuna for lunch and hasn’t brushed her teeth since then.

“What are you doing?” Rachel asks quietly.

Quinn frowns, because she thinks it’s pretty obvious.

“I mean,” Rachel corrects herself, “ _why_  are you doing this? Is it the hormones?”

She resists the urge to sigh and push Rachel away and tell her to start playing that “Banana Pancakes” song Rachel doesn’t like. Instead, she dips her head down and presses her mouth against Rachel’s again, catching her bottom lip quickly before letting go and straightening up.

“I wanted to,” she says, shrugging her shoulder. “It was for me,” she says nonchalantly, which isn’t too far from the truth.

“Oh,” Rachel breathes out, going quiet for a moment. “And?”

Quinn flinches. “And what?”

“Well, did you get what you wanted from it?”

She brings her gaze back around to Rachel and studies her, checks to see if she’s being baited, and when she decides she’s not, she leans back in and brushes her lips against Rachel’s again, quickly, pulling back. She’s stopped by Rachel’s hands coming up around her shoulders, pulling her in further and harder.

Rachel’s hands are tangled in her hair when she pulls back to catch her breath, and then Rachel is sinking back into her corner of the couch, propping the guitar up on her leg.

“ _That_ ,” she says softly, strumming out a random chord, “was for me.”

\---

Kissing Rachel – the thought of have done it, rather than the thought of doing it again – keeps her awake; keeps her mind racing through the night while Lima shuts down and closes itself until the morning.

There’s always been a sort of fascination, if she’s being with honest herself. A sort of intrigue – what would happen if she kissed Rachel Berry?

Her answer, apparently, is that Rachel Berry would kiss her back, and that alone baffles her.

_Why would Rachel kiss back?_

_Maybe_ , she thinks, rolling over on the cot Mike set up for her – “ _until I can get the spare bed from my house in here_ ,” he had told her –  _maybe she’s just as curious?_

At sixteen, pregnant and living in a music shop, curiosity is enough.

Curiosity might be just want she needs.

\---

The next time Rachel comes into the shop, Quinn bypasses the lesson room and opens the sound booth, pushing the button lock as the door closes.

Rachel only pretends to open her guitar case until Quinn has the door locked and then she stops, leaving the instrument inside its case, and crosses the small room, catching the bottom of Quinn’s chin in her hand and pulling Quinn’s face down until its level with her own.

“Rachel,” is as far as she gets before the rest of her words are swallowed by Rachel’s mouth.

She knew what she was doing, using this room, but when Rachel’s tongue slides against her own and then the fly on her jeans is being worked down and Rachel’s small, not-so-manly hand is sliding past the elastic band of her underwear, it’s still kind of unreal.

\---

When she catches her breath, she picks up her guitar and starts to strum.

“ _Baby’s good to me you know_ ,” she croons, smiling and winking at Rachel.

The brunette groans and drops one hand over her face, the other splays across her naked stomach.

“ _She’s happy as can be you know, she said so._ ”

Rachel rolls onto her stomach and props herself up on her elbows and Quinn leers at the view in front of her, feeling like Puck and not caring.

“You know,” Rachel drawls, “I think you could replace that guy in New York – the Naked Cowboy, or whatever his name is. You have a better voice than he does. Plus,” she says, her eyes lighting up, “you look  _much_  better playing a guitar naked than he does.”

Quinn laughs deep. “ _She’s so glad, she’s telling all the world,_ ” she sings.

Rachel singing along with her is the sweetest sound she’s heard since “Smoke on the Water”.


End file.
